LITMIR.BIZ

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It would start something that Mum would have to finish. I’ll pay it if you don’t want to. It was enough for me to stand there and let her know I had the means, to be honest.”

      His mouth twitched and he growled, “Leave it. If you want it paid, I’ll pay it, but that won’t happen again.”

      They didn’t talk any more until they were on the plane.

      “Go have a proper sleep in the cabin,” Cesar told her once they’d been cleared to move around. “I’ll let you know if he needs you.” He nodded at Enrique.

      And there it was again: evidence of how things had changed. Sleep in my bed.

      By the time they landed, the question of where their bed would be located arose.

      “Does he know where we’re going?” Sorcha asked, still befuddled by her heavy nap, but certain the driver had turned the wrong direction from the airport.

      “We’re running up the coast to look at a house. We’ll stay in a hotel overnight if we decide we like it, and sign the papers in the morning.”

      “Out of the city?” Her heart sank. She would have preferred to stay in Ireland if he wanted her out of the way.

      “Do you mind? Diega had the same reaction, but I’ve always wanted a vineyard and this place just came on the market.”

      She swung her head around. “A vineyard? Really?”

      He shrugged, showing a hint of self-consciousness. “I grew up spending time with my father’s vintner. It’s a fascinating process. Probably the reason I went into chemistry. Jorge wasn’t book-educated, so he couldn’t tell me why certain reactions happened, but he was an artist for getting the results he wanted. He let me experiment. I had some successes. A few disasters,” he said wryly. “I enjoyed it. Enrique might, too, when he’s old enough to get his hands dirty.”

      She almost left it at that. If he’d still been her boss, she would have, but they were married. She took a risk. “Was? He’s no longer alive? It sounds like you would steal him from your father if you could.”

      “He passed away four years ago. My parents didn’t tell me or I would have gone to his funeral.” Cesar turned his head to look out his side window, but she saw his hand close into a fist on his thigh.

      Oh, Cesar. She reached to cover his hand.

      He looked down at her small hand over his for a long moment, then removed his own from under it. He gave her a faintly disdainful smile. “It’s fine.”

      She swallowed, looking out her own window, stung. Apparently it didn’t matter if she was his wife. There were still lines she wasn’t allowed to cross.

      The villa was stunning, sprawled across a hillside with an infinity pool that overlooked the lower bench of the vineyard and the blue-green horizon of the Mediterranean.

      The interior was absent of furniture and Sorcha wasn’t sure about the chartreuse in the dining room—a space that could easily seat thirty—but as they moved through the arched doorways from room to room, she mostly goggled. Ten bedrooms? Six with their own sitting rooms and baths? Plus a nursery with a nanny suite?

      This was not her life. She subtly pinched herself as she stood in the huge master suite, slowly pivoting to take in the three walls of windows, plus the terrace overlooking the pool and sea. It didn’t matter how big a bed they put in here, there would still be room to play tennis. The tub in the attached bathroom was its own lap pool.

      Apparently the owners had run out of money after choosing to build a new villa rather than renovating the one that had been here for a century.

      “What do you think?” Cesar asked when they returned downstairs and stood in the third lounge, this one an indoor-outdoor space with removable walls, a fireplace and a wet bar. “It only has a six-car garage and I don’t see a space to expand it. The beach is quite a hike, but at least it’s private.”

      Only six cars. Forty stairs to the private beach. Such hardship.

      “Do you realize what it will take to furnish this place?” she murmured as the agent gave them a moment of privacy. Sorcha was talking about the cost, but Cesar gave her a sharp look, taking Enrique from her as she shifted the baby to her other shoulder. Their son was growing every minute and surprisingly heavy.

      “I don’t expect you to source everything yourself,” Cesar said. “Hire a decorator so you just have to make the decisions. Paint first. That green in the dining room is hideous.”

      That streak of artistry in him always surprised her. He was such a man of logic and facts, but aesthetics were as important to him as function. He would have made a terrific architect.

      They signed the papers the next day. Sorcha’s hand trembled as she wrote her name. How did she own half of such a property? The prenup gave her their principal residence, but she felt like the biggest fraudster alive putting her name to a house like that.

      Fortunately, babies had a way of narrowing one’s focus down to the most immediate priorities and she didn’t have time to worry about it. The next few weeks passed in a blur of meetings with decorators, interviewing nannies among staff needed for the new house, enduring fittings for a new wardrobe for herself—Cesar gave her an obscenely high budget and told her to use it—choosing baby clothes and other nursery items and occasionally being woken by her husband with “He won’t settle. He must be hungry.”

      If she had thought it would be a time of growing closer to her husband, she was both right and wrong. They often talked as they always had. He shared work details; she gave him updates on the house. They marveled at Enrique and laughed at themselves as new parents.

      Where their son was concerned, they grew very close. If Sorcha had dreamed of watching Cesar fall in love someday, her wish was granted. He stole time with Enrique every chance he could, walked him at night, changed him when he needed it, even came back to her one time with his sleeves rolled up and the front of his shirt wet, Enrique smelling fresh and damp, wearing a different outfit.

      “That turned into a bath. But he’s clean and dry now. And hungry.”

      Sometimes they watched a movie in the evenings and when she started joining him in his gym, where she walked the tread while he did his weight routine, he only asked, “Did the doctor say you’re allowed?”

      They slept together, often with their bodies touching. She knew he was hard every morning, but they kept their hands to themselves and their kisses tended to be pecks of greeting and departure. The domestic kind. A brief touch on her shoulder or waist, an even briefer touch of his mouth to hers on his way out the door.

      Was he still getting used to the idea that he could kiss her? Was he showing restraint because she hadn’t been cleared for sex yet? Or did he simply not want anything more from her?

      If she didn’t have a baby to show for it, she would think that passionate man who had seemed so driven by lust and determined to elicit the same in her had been a hot dream by a wicked mind.

      So she was doubly anxious when she came home from the doctor the day they were supposed to go to his mother’s for the evening. Part of her had been wishing for weeks that they could make love and get the suspense over with. Now the moment was at hand and she found herself swallowing her tongue.

      She hadn’t reminded him she was seeing the doctor today. He wound up running late, arriving home as she was finishing her makeup. Leaving the ivory tower of his penthouse was enough to deal with, she decided. Aside from her doctor appointments, she had been enjoying this time of seclusion, cocooned with her baby, visiting with her family over the tablet so she didn’t feel isolated.

      The thought of fully assuming the title of Señora Montero publicly was intimidating the heck out of her.

      Fortunately, she had Octavia. She often texted her new friend at odd hours. It wasn’t unusual to find Octavia giving Lorenzo a midnight feed when she rose to nurse Enrique. Octavia was also riding the ups and downs of new motherhood

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